Echoes

I attended earlier this week a staff event that took me out of the office, across town and right down memory lane. A nonprofit we support invited our team to come and get a tour of their operation. This organization tells me it promotes creativity, environmental awareness, and community through reuse. To support this mission it has purchased the shopping strip of my early youth to develop there instead an arts, thrift, and sustainability hub.

When I looked at that strip in the morning’s bright sunshine, I could see that each element to this proposed project promises to bring to the surrounding community a desperately-needed renewal. I could certainly see the potential of their vision. But I have to say that I also saw still the hub of my late 60’s childhood. I felt so nostalgic.

Where the thrift store resides, I saw still the Woolworth. That Woolworth was not only the purveyor of superior grilled cheese sandwiches, but an important resource for sundries. Woolworth was for me a craft store before stand-alone craft stores were a “thing” in my hometown. I remember Mom purchasing pipe cleaners, crayons, pencils, paper of every kind, glue and lengths of colorful fabric. I was never an especially crafty child, but what I lacked in artistic instinct, I made up for with intention and verve. I had a lot of creative verve.

I remember the red and green shack that appeared in the breezeway of that strip mall each December, constructed to host a resolute Santa Claus. Painted on the outside to look like an Alpine cabin, its interior boasted only an upholstered chair. I wonder now whether that uninsulated lean-to had been outfitted with a space heater. I suspect not. I can only imagine the force of will it must have taken that poor, hapless Santa to maintain a jolly demeanor while he sat in that shack – hot from an unseasonable heat wave, or frigid from a sudden cold snap – and entertained my list of wished-for goodies. That was some kind of Herculean Santa. 

Two doors down from that breezeway was wedged our favorite children’s clothing store – Tots to Teens. Run by a couple who retired from a long career in the NY garment district, Tots to Teens was the place to get an outfit for the first day of school, to find a cool blouse for the dance, or to welcome spring with an Easter outfit. So dependable was the quality and so tasteful the selection that I don’t remember a single time when I wasn’t given free rein to shop. I got to spend way longer than I’m sure I should have, poring over rack after rack after rack of options. Next door was a party store that sold candy, paper plates, invitations and cocktail napkins with witty sayings – the ultimate “bread and butter” gift for the discerning guest. That store had the most amazing collection of balloon colors, my particular favorite being one which looked black until inflated, at which point it revealed its midnight blue hue.

Each store was lorded over by its owner. There weren’t in those days any big-box stores managed by anonymous faces from faraway places. These businesses were grounded in an almost unsettling familiarity. And that familiarity was generative. The covered sidewalk hosted daily meetings and family updates. I remember vividly running into people from nearly every element of my world – parents of friends, neighbors, the families of Dad’s business associates, the Sunday School teacher who was amazed to see me so nearly grown – placing her hands on my chest as if to check for the emergence of womanly shape or to affirm that I was standing there, taller than before but real. These meetings were commonplace and essential. This was a true community hub.

Where the drug store was once situated will shortly house a credit union that serves low-income families and would-be small businesses. The liquor store across the street is now part of the hipster scene, serving up house-made churros with cardamom sugar and enabling our 21^st Century addiction to high-quality coffee. The strip mall’s parking lot will make way in the coming years for patches of green space, play space and a skate park.

I’m bracing myself for the incredulous admirers of the new arts and thrift hub. I’m steeling myself for the inevitable, wide-eyed disbelief when they see the transformation of the now-crumbling mall into a carefully curated experience of creative sustainability. I will try very hard not to roll my eyes when someone says with affection and gravity: “Who’d have thought this place could ever amount to anything?” I will avoid offering the obvious and unwanted answer to their thoughtless, rhetorical question.

Perhaps it’s maudlin of me to be so consumed by memories of my youth. Perhaps it’s indulgent to see a soft-focus version of childhood, instead of its present decrepit reality. Or maybe not. Perhaps it’s useful to see that these visions for a revitalized community are not planted on barren ground, that they will spring from a once-vigorous past. I think this is why we tell stories. I think this is why I take the time to see in my mind’s eye what used to be. It’s as though I’m attempting to nourish visions for the future with these memories, seeding that vision with the touch of businesses, meetings, dreams, the work of neighbors long gone.

Even if I’m the only one who sees it, I’ll look for the nearly faded outline of that hub in its new iteration. I’ll listen for the echo of the resolute Santa in the laughter of those play spaces. I’ll allow the creative vibe of the Woolworth sundries to settle on me when I visit the reuse center for artistic supplies. I’ll see the tensile binding of neighbors, family and friends when I watch young people connect once again along those covered sidewalks. And I won’t be the least bit surprised if that space once again yields a vigorous community hub, because I’ll have seen it all before. I will, however, be there to welcome back those echoes, those vibes and those friendly bonds. I’ll listen carefully, and I’ll tell the story, complete with its reprise.